I am a retired Air Force and airline pilot and I don’t know Garth Greenlee, but I agree with him on his concerns with Boutique Air (Journal, June 16).
I Googled the PC-12 aircraft and it looks like a good, reliable airplane. The big BUT is that it only has one engine.
The accident rate of the PC-12 is comparable to other U.S. registered airplanes of the same size. The PC-12 flies in many mountainous countries, but I don’t know if their routes cross mountains.
One PC-12 accident in Butte, Mont., was caused by ice in the fuel system and fuel imbalance. All fourteen passengers were killed including seven children. There have been 29 incidents and 75 fatalities involving PC-12s; the lower numbers printed in the Cortez Journal were misleading because they were only incidents that occurred in the U.S.
The company says there have been no incidents due to engine failure. The incident in South Bend was due to loss of power (which is a politically correct phrase for “the engine was not spinning the propeller fast enough”). Fortunately there were no injuries.
Winter temperatures across these mountains at 25,000 feet would be at least -55 F or colder. I would feel okay in daylight summer hours when the pilot may be able to find a decent spot to crash, but winter or night operations are another matter.
If I or my family and twelve others were boarding an airplane to fly across Colorado’s mountains, I would like to see a propeller on each wing, no matter what the company thinks of their engines. From Cortez to Phoenix is probably fine because of the flat landscape and low elevation.
Most of the PC-12 pilots are low-time and low-experience. That is a fact and not a “put down;” we all started out that way. Two engines are commonsense insurance in extreme flight conditions.
Politicians have no problem sending people into danger as long as it is not them or a family member. Next winter the city council and mayor will be driving to the Durango airport.
David McCuskey
Dove Creek
